Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Author Virna DePaul to Book Lovers Inc. today. Virna is a former prosecutor who writes about flawed individuals who find redemption through courage and love. Chosen By Blood is a paranormal romance and Virna’s first print release in a series called Para-Ops and it is published on May 3, 2011, to many rave reviews!

Virna! It’s such a thrill to be able to chat with you today, thank you for agreeing to join us!

Virna: Thank you so much for having me here! I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and your readers.

Virna can you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Virna: I’m a mother of three young boys and a long-time romance reader who loves to travel, see Broadway shows, and is always struggling with balancing all the important aspects of my life. I’m an odd mixture of shy and bold. I flounder at making small talk and worry about what others think of me, yet I enjoy a challenge, whether it’s auditioning for a Shakespeare play with no prior acting experience or asking difficult questions in order to make a genuine connection with someone or to grow as a person.

Describe a typical day of writing? Are you a planner or pantser?

Virna: I don’t really have a typical day because I haven’t come up with a regular writing schedule that works for me. Each day I simply prioritize the same 101 tasks most working mothers have to juggle, trying to fit marketing and writing in somewhere. Since I write fairly fast, it’s a little too easy for me to put off writing until I have a deadline approaching. But then again, it’s what seems to work for me. I’m hoping to find a happy medium someday.

What can we expect of Chosen By Blood?

Virna: Chosen by Blood is book 1 of the Para-Ops series. The Para-Ops team is the first special ops team formed by the FBI to recruit both humans and Otherborn, humanlike creatures with superhuman DNA. The Para-Ops team is comprised of Knox Devereaux, the vampire leader, Felicia, a special agent skilled in hostage negotiation, a wraith, a mage, a werebeast, and a human psychic shaman. The team is formed after humans and Otherborn fought each other in the second civil war. There is tension on the team not just between humans and Otherborn; each race has to grapple with their own fears and biases even as they try to work towards peace in the nation as a whole. Chosen By Blood is the love story of Knox and Felicia.

In Knox Devereaux, you created an extremely strong, charismatic, arrogant “dharmire” or half human vampire who agrees to lead the Para Ops team. Knox has a particular vulnerability with regard to a certain human and I want to talk about that in a minute. Knox lives on a knifes edge and while he also is the leader of his clan he has been forced to prove himself repeatedly because of unfortunate circumstances surrounding his father. Could you share a little more about Knox’s character with readers and maybe give a little background about the vampire hierarchy regarding his mother and the counsel?

Virna: Knox is a dharmire, a half vampire/half human who is the son of the Vampire Queen and a traitorous human who informed other humans how to kill vampires. Knox struggles to lead his clan, which is literally starving due to an FBI-engineered vaccine that changes the properties of human blood so it can’t nourish vamps. At the same time, he believes it’s only because of his human blood, the same human blood that his clan despises, that he’s strong enough to lead. He’s constantly trying to prove his loyalty to his people, including the Vamp Council (a combined legislative and judiciary branch of the vampire government), which is adamantly opposed to humans and vampires mating. The Vamp Council constantly reminds Knox of his duty to marry another vampire.

In the world of this series, vampires are NOT monogamous and the males are duty bound to marry and procreate with vampires. Yet even though Knox feels genuine affection for his married-for-convenience wife, Knox loves a human, Special Agent Felicia Locke. Because of her strong human morals, she tries her best to stay away from Knox. Felicia’s bound and determined not to be his mistress on the side, but her resolve weakens when she and Knox join the Para-Ops team.

Virna: Most definitely! Felicia is a good and loyal friend who lost her beloved parents before the war. She longs to belong, to be part of a family, and to find a man who can love her and put her first. As much as she believes Knox desires and even loves her, and as much as she desires and loves him, she refuses to compromise her morals or her self-worth, especially for an immortal who detests his own human blood and therefore can’t help but detest hers as well.

Knox is absolutely besotted with Felicia and because there are significant issues, barriers if you will that as she sees it prevent them from ever becoming a couple. The sexual tension is like an electric current arching between these two, it’s a real battle of the wills isn’t it?

Virna: I tried to create a hero and heroine that yearn to be together but encounter significant conflict to their romance. I think anytime true passion is denied, no matter the reason, temptation is never far away. Reason flies out the window and the saying “All’s fair in love and war” will come into play. After a decade of staying away from Felicia, I wanted to portray Knox as someone who’d reached this point. A male hell-bent on claiming a woman is incredibly hard to resist, in my opinion, especially when that male is a three-hundred-year-old vampire.

I found Chosen By Blood to be a multi layered story Virna, it’s suspenseful, thrilling and full of action scenes, however you also embrace several themes in the narrative. It was heart breaking at times, because of the conflict that Knox and Felicia face because of basic moral and cultural differences between their species. In addition you also allow readers to see the ravages of chemical warfare in a post war world and how prejudice and fear prevails despite the war being over and the government signing treaties to allow the Others to assimilate. Did you set out to address moral and ethical issues as part of your paranormal series?

Virna: Thank you for recognizing all those layers! I didn’t consciously set out to address these themes when I started writing, but as the story evolved, it was impossible not to address them. I’ve always been fascinated with the tension between desire and duty, and so Knox’s conflict came to me fairly early in the process. As I explored the strength of his loyalty to his people, I wanted to make something HUGE be at stake—the survival of a whole race seemed to be the thing. Yet I also wanted to highlight how too much of anything, even a good thing, can be harmful. And since I wanted to create a team of several races having to work together for a common good, it was only natural that I explore the fears and biases those races would bring to the table before that could happen.

The Para-Ops team are certainly an interesting cross section of Otherworld and humans, fascinating characterization. “Chosen By Fate”, is the next book in the Para-Ops series due out in October 2011. Where will you be taking the team next?

Chosen By Fate is the story of the team’s ghost, Wraith, and its human psychic shaman, Caleb O’Flare. Wraith and Caleb first meet in book 1 and their strong reactions to one another are the product of complex back stories. In their own ways, Wraith and Caleb have to deal with the tension between pain and pleasure, a dichotomy that is brought to the forefront when they set out on their next mission, investigating a series of crimes in the feline community in Los Angeles.

How many books are you contracted to write so far for the Para-Ops series?

Virna: I sold the first two books of the series plus the option book to Berkley. I’m currently working on the proposal for Book 3, which is about the team’s werebeast, Dex Hunt.

What can readers expect next from the desk of Virna DePaul?

Virna: I’m excited to be writing paranormals for Berkley, but also contemporary romantic suspense for Harlequin. My debut novel with Harlequin Romantic Suspense, Dangerous To Her, comes out in September 2011. It’s about an undercover cop who poses a bailiff in order to investigate a judge. He ends up reuniting with his college love and discovers she’s harbored a secret for almost a decade. I’ve also just sold another story to HRS about a woman who must accept the reopening of her mother’s murder investigation by the one man she hoped never to see again. Finally, in April of 2012, I’ll be launching a new series with HQN.

Wow, you are going to be really busy! Congratulations on all your upcoming publications! I for one will be looking forward to reading your future publications! 🙂

Now can you tell us 3 reasons why people should read your books?

Oh, wow. Okay, well: 1) I try to make my stories entertaining but also relevant to people’s lives. This means not shying away from the darker aspects of humanity, but not skimping on the things that make romance so critical—passion, redemption, and hope; 2) I include lots of action and sensuality in all my plots; and 3) I’m only going to get better and better because I’m foremost a reader who knows what it’s like to be swept away by a story and I want to bring that experience to others. 🙂

Well, IMHO you’ve succeeded in meeting all three of those objectives in Chosen By Blood, it’s an awesome page turner!

Virna, it’s been such a delight to chat with you today and thank you again for joining us at Book Lovers!

Virna: Thank you so much for having me! I’m proud to be a reader and writer of romance novels. I’ve met so many people who’ve encouraged and inspired me, and I hope to do the same.

Where to find Virna:

Website
Twitter
Facebook

~*~*Giveaway*~*~

 

Virna has generously offered one copy of Chosen By Blood to one lucky commenter!

All you have to do is leave a meaningful comment about the interview.
(You can read our full giveaway policy here)

Please leave us a way to contact you.
(Email in blogger profile or twitter name – no way to contact you – no entry).

This giveaway is open worldwide!

Giveaway ends on Saturday, June 11, 2011; and we will announce the winner on Sunday.

Good luck!

About Lea

Lea is an animal loving, tree hugging vegetarian who lives in Toronto, Canada with her family, which includes three dogs. She is a prolific reader and has been blogging and reviewing since 2008. Lea is a contributor at the USA Today HEA Blog and an active member at Goodreads.

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